What Does Evangelism Look Like After a Tragedy?

Hey, Pastor Adriel here, and we want to hear from our podcast audience specifically. Give us a call at 1130 Pacific Time, 833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE, with your question about the Christian faith. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

We pray that you had a wonderful weekend. This is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Our phone lines are open right now for the next 25 minutes or so, and you can call us with your question at 833, the CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account. You can watch Adriel right now live on YouTube and send him a message that way. And of course, you can always email us your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Don in Centralia, Illinois. Don, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Good afternoon, Pastor, and thank you for taking my call.

My question is this. In reading through the Bible every year, I come to the passage recently in Ezekiel 47, verse 12, where it talks about the water flowing from the temple. And I take this passage to mean that this is in the new heavens and the new earth, where the temple is Jesus Christ and the water's flowing from the temple down to the river that gets too broad to cross. And trees are planted there on both sides, and their leaves are not going to wither, their fruit's not going to fail, and they're going to bear fruit every month because the water flows from this is from the sanctuary. In verse 12, part three, their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. Now, in my understanding of the Bible, that when we get back in or when we get into the new heaven and we're with Jesus, there's not going to be no more tears, no sorrow, no pain.

So why would there need to be leaves for healing? Don, that's an excellent question, and I love to hear that you are digging into the Scriptures, reading through the Bible every year. May God continue to bless you.

As you do that, as you open up his word, may he fill you with your spirit to give you understanding. And so Ezekiel 47, verse 12, I'm just going to read it again, and on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.

Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. And by the way, you probably know this, Don, reading through the Scriptures every year, but this is also the image that's given to us at the very end of the Bible in the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 22, beginning in verse 1, this vision that was given to the apostle John. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Now you're 100% right that in the new creation there is going to be no more sickness, no more death, no more sorrow. We're going to exist in perfect love and perfect worship, in perfect holiness before the triune God. And so I think we just have to read this as prophetic, symbolic literature. Oftentimes in the prophets you have this kind of language, and I think what's really being highlighted both in Ezekiel and in Revelation chapter 22 is that the new creation we have there is the restoration of all things, including the nations.

The nations that were once warring with one another, the nations that once could not get along, and we see that everywhere around us now. Now there is perfect peace, and that which was broken before has been healed now through the work of Jesus Christ in the new creation. And so that's really how I take it, certainly, right? We want to let the clear passages of scripture interpret the less clear ones, and it's very clear, as you already stated, that in the new creation, in the new heavens, in the new earth, there is no more sickness.

We're not going to need healing, per se. And so I take it as these leaves are life-giving. It's the enjoyment of that eternal state in the presence of the Lord, and in perfect peace amongst the nations that at one time were at war. And so, hey, thank you so much for your question, brethren. May the Lord bless you as you continue to dig into the scriptures. Love the fact that Don is going through the Bible once every year. What a great challenge for every one of us, how to be digging into God's Word on a regular basis.

And that's quite an accomplishment. So, Don, kudos to you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We'd love to hear from you.

If you have a question about the Bible, theology, doctrine, the Christian life, you name it, we'd love to hear your question. Here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE. We'll be taking calls for the next 20 minutes or so.

833-843-2673 is the number. Here's a voicemail we received from one of our listeners named Mark. I'm calling because I live here in Collierville, Tennessee, and we had a mass shooting a couple days ago at Kroger. Turns out my oldest son was walking in right in front of the shooter. Didn't know he was coming in behind him. And by God's grace, he wasn't shot first, but the man next to him was.

So my son saw a lot of blood and horrible things that day, and he was very shaken up. He's not a born-again Christian yet. He knows the way of salvation. He knows everything mentally. He just hasn't accepted Jesus yet. And my question and request for you guys is for everyone listening to pray for him that he is convicted and the public spirit doesn't quit pestering him until he does open up to God and his love for him. And also, if you have any suggestions on how I can help him through these days, I really feel it's so important right now.

He's the most vulnerable he's ever been in his entire life. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you and your show.

Bye. Hey, Mark. I am grateful to hear that your son is okay after that tragedy. I read about this in the news, and just absolutely devastating to hear about these kinds of things happening. So let's pray for Mark's son right now in particular, just for the Lord to be with him to bring healing and to use this in his life. Father, God, I pray for Mark's son. Lord, thank you for the life that you have given to him. Thank you for sparing his life.

Thank you that he's safe now. And I pray for him, Lord, that this horrific event, God, that it would not scar him, but that through these things, you might use these circumstances, Lord God, to draw him to yourself. We also pray, Lord, for the many others, Lord, who were shot, and the suffering that that community is feeling right now. We pray, God, that you would pour your spirit out on them, that you would bring about healing, restoration, and God, just intervene in a powerful way by the grace of your spirit. Would you be with Mark also as he has conversations with his son and seeks, Lord, to encourage comfort and also share your love with him?

In Jesus' name, amen. One of the things I read was that a number of pastors were coming alongside of the victims, which really encouraged me. I think as Christians, we need to step into this space. When there's a tragedy, when people are mourning, when they're suffering, when we're confronted by the frailty of human life, our mortality, we need to be there as the body of Christ, bringing comfort, if there are ways that we can support physically, helping people get counseling, those kinds of things.

I think that is really important. Just for us as believers, Mark, I think having these conversations, reaching out to those who have been affected, praying for them, finding ways practically that we can be helpful when people are suffering, I do think of one passage in particular. You talked about wanting to talk with your son about the gospel, about faith in Jesus in light of this traumatic event that he's just experienced in his life. There is this interesting scene in Luke chapter 13 where Jesus actually talks about a couple really horrific tragedies. He talks about the importance of repentance in light of those things. He says, Luke records in chapter 13 verse 1, there were some present at that very time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Jesus answered them, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those 18 on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. It seems like there were people that were coming to Jesus saying, these Galileans were killed by Pilate in this gruesome way as they were trying to worship.

They must have been pretty bad people. They were making a judgment about these people, these victims. Jesus says, no, let's not go there. When we're confronted with death, with human mortality, what it should remind us of is our own need of repentance, of drawing near to the Lord, that human life is frail.

And so when we see these kinds of things, it should wake us up. And as you're having conversations, Mark, with your son, and you're seeking to comfort him, to love him, to get him the help that he needs, I think it is appropriate. And Jesus does it there in Luke chapter 13 to say, look, life is so fragile. And there's no more important question than, where am I at with God, my personal relationship with Christ? Do I believe in him?

Have I received him for the forgiveness of my sins? We need to turn to the Lord. And sometimes these kinds of events are means through which God turns us to himself. And I don't know if that's the case with your son, but that's our prayer, Mark.

And so may God give you wisdom as you have these conversations as well. And Bill, I want to give you an opportunity to speak into this as well, because I know as a counselor, you work with people who have experienced traumatic events. You know, when you go through something like this, which is really such an outside the ordinary event in anyone's life, it's so important to get some counseling help right away. There's something that's a lot of times used in situations like this workplace shootings. It's called critical incident stress debriefing or CISD. And what that is, is a chance for the individual or individuals who have gone through the event to debrief with a counselor. And the research shows that if they do that, their chances of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, are much less. So hopefully this grocery store chain, a lot of times in these situations, the corporation will reach out to the employees, the customers that were in the store, offer them that critical incident stress debriefing. And I would say to this dad, to Mark, if your son has not been offered that, to explore that possibility.

If it's not available through the corporation, to try to go see someone who specializes in this. Because if not, what often happens is there's nightmares, there's anxiety, there can be eating problems, you name it. And these haunting memories can just come back again and again. So Mark, that's what I would suggest. Reach out to the company or the store where this occurred and see if your son can get some help through them. And we'll just continue to pray for him.

Tough situation. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here's our phone number if you have a call regarding the Bible or the Christian life.

It's 833-THE-CORE, 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Heather from Nashville, Tennessee. Heather, what's your question for Adriel?

Hi, thank you. I am currently studying the Bible cover to cover is my goal right now. And I am in 1 Samuel 16, 14. And it says how the Lord removed the Holy Spirit from Saul, which I understand why after reading his story. But then it says an evil spirit sent from the Lord began to torment him is the translation I have. And since I've been studying so much, that seems to go against the character of God, to send something evil on someone. So I didn't know if that translation is not correct or what to really think about that.

And I'd love an explanation. That'd be great. Yeah. Well, I thank you for that question. And again, grateful to hear that you're digging into the scriptures, reading through the Bible. And this, the story of Saul, King Saul and David, you know, who comes after him. I mean, it's one of the most amazing stories in the Old Testament. I remember reading it to my kids and they were shocked when basically you have you have Saul trying to kill David at one point. And they're just blown away that this guy who was once mightily used by the Lord, I mean, we're told that he is filled with the spirit, that he's prophesying.

He's the first king of Israel. And then you get to this section right here in verse 14 of chapter 16. And the spirit of the Lord departs from him. Well, that's that right there raises a lot of questions in people's minds, Heather. But then the next part and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. So what's going on here? You know, it's interesting.

One, I would say there's not a translation issue here. This isn't contrary to the the character of God. Even there is a kind of discipline that's taking place here, I think. Look, when we sin, when we depart from the Lord, when we go down our own path, and that's essentially what Saul was doing, God disciplines us. And one of the ways that sometimes we experience discipline is through this demonic oppression that we see sometimes. Now, one passage of scripture, Heather, that I think you can find this in in the New Testament in particular is what Paul says to the Corinthians, where he's talking about a particular person within the church who is living in unrepentant sin. And essentially, the Apostle Paul says, listen, listen to this. It is actually reported, this is First Corinthians, chapter five, verse one, that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans for a man has his father's wife.

And you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in the body, I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. In other words, this person who's living in unrepentant sin, Paul says, look, look, exercise church discipline on this guy, deliver this guy over to Satan, so that he might experience that sort of spiritual depression, that chastisement, so that he might turn back to the Lord. I think that's one of the ways that you can read what's taking place in 1 Samuel, chapter 16, is there's this kind of discipline here where Saul, who was called by God, is sinning against the Lord, as you've noted, in these grievous ways. He's disobeying God time and time again, and so now he's entering into this discipline, this chastisement from the Lord, and that's precisely what this spirit that's tormenting him is. Now, the sad thing with Saul, as I'm sure you know, is he doesn't repent. In fact, he seems to go further and further away from the Lord, all the way, at the end of his life, to consulting a medium, and just going against everything that he knew was right, and he dies this tragic death.

But we have to realize that when we continue an unrepentant sin, there is discipline for the people of God, there is discipline for those who've called upon the name of the Lord, and in this instance, it seems like part of the discipline was this tormenting spirit, just like in 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, deliver this person over to the evil one for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, that he might turn, come to his senses, realizing that he needs God's grace. Thanks, Heather, and I appreciate that question. And again, we've got another listener who's going through the Bible and studying and getting into it deeply, and boy, we just appreciate that so much.

Every time Adriel hears somebody is really getting into God's word on a regular basis, a big smile comes on his face. I understand why that's so cool. That's right, Bill. It just blesses my heart. Yeah, I knew it did. I knew it. Speaking of blessing your heart, we have something really cool we want to offer to our listeners today. If you've ever watched the live stream of our program on YouTube or on Facebook, you may have already seen this very special item sitting there on Adriel's desk. That's right, Bill. And if you've watched the show, you've probably seen me enjoying my morning coffee from our own core Christianity coffee mugs.

And for a limited time, we are making them available for our listeners. I love using my own core mug each morning. The outside of the mug is black. It just looks real clean.

It has our logo on it, and the inside is red like a lot of the books that we have here. It just sort of matches everything. So this is a wonderful mug.

It fits perfectly in your hand. And if you are interested in drinking your morning coffee out of the core Christianity mug, get a hold of this resource. Hey, husbands and wives could get one and have their coffee together. Wouldn't that be cool? That's right. Yeah, get two of them. Yeah, that's a good idea, Bill. Yeah, there you go. We're offering those for a donation of fifteen dollars or more. We think they're actually worth more than fifteen dollars because they're so cool. But you can get yours by going to core Christianity dot com forward slash shop.

That's core Christianity dot com forward slash shop and look for the core Christianity coffee mug. Well, we do get questions through our YouTube channel. And Jayanthi asks this question. Can you explain if our forgiveness is dependent upon forgiving others? As it says in Matthew Chapter six.

Yeah, super good question. Jesus, right. He gives the Lord's Prayer here in the Sermon on the Mount. And hopefully you're familiar with that prayer.

And then right at the end, you know, lead us not to temptation, delivers from evil. You have verse fourteen, Matthew six, fourteen for if you forgive others, their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

Now, really important. So does this mean that if I don't perfectly forgive the people around me in my life, that God is not going to forgive me? He's going to withhold forgiveness from me.

Well, I think it's really important that we don't get the cart before the horse. It's interesting because, you know, you have the parable of the unforgiving servant, for example, in the gospels. And Jesus makes it absolutely clear there that we forgive out of our having been forgiven. So the only way that you can actually really forgive people, the people who have sinned against you from the heart is if you're conscious of, if you're meditating on, if you're grounded in the forgiveness that God has given to you.

God, who has extended so much forgiveness to us, right, all of our debts, the sins we've done against a perfect and pure holy God, he's forgiven us. If we don't forgive others, well, that's indicative of a deep spiritual problem. And let me just say there are a number of statistics that have come out recently that show that believing Christians, you know, people who confess faith in Jesus, who say, I'm a born again believer, that they have a very difficult time, we have a very difficult time forgiving.

And so there's this sort of malfunction, I think, in our understanding of the gospel. But it's clear to me from the teaching of the New Testament that our forgiving others comes from our having been forgiven. And so that's the priority is the forgiveness we've received, which we extend to the people around us who sin against us. And so I would see this more so as if we're not forgiving others, if we don't forgive others, there is this real serious problem.

It's an indication of the fact that there's a malfunction in our understanding of the gospel. If we think we're to earn forgiveness or they need to earn our forgiveness, that kind of a thing, well, there's a huge problem there. And so we're called to forgive.

It's an imperative. And I think Jesus is highlighting that here, how important it is for us to forgive. But we also need to realize that it's the forgiveness of God that has the priority in our lives. And it's only as we are grounded in His forgiveness towards us that we're able to do what He commands us to do, that we're able to forgive others as He has forgiven us. And that's precisely what verse 12 says, forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And so I really appreciate that question watching from YouTube. May the Lord bless you. May God give you grace also to forgive and to rest in the forgiveness that He's given to you. Well, this is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

We have time for one last question. This is an email which has to do with something in the Old Testament, Adriel. It's from Barry, and he says, I'm working my way through Leviticus chapter 16, and I'm wondering how to reconcile the commandment to abstain from eating blood with a similar restraint in Acts chapter 15. Should Christians refrain from eating blood in their food? Yeah, nothing but well-done steaks.

And I know a lot of you meat lovers are going to be upset about that. Yeah, that's a great question, because the Old Testament says don't eat food with the blood in it. And then you get to Acts chapter 15, the Jerusalem Council, and that's one of the things that's reiterated for New Covenant believers. Verse 19, Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. And that's what's given to these Gentile believers.

Now you have to understand, here's how to clear this up. The Gentile inclusion has just happened. The New Covenant has been inaugurated by the death of Jesus Christ.

He's risen from the dead. Now the nations are flocking into the church. They're becoming a part of the covenant people of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Let me just tell you something. All of a sudden you have this cultural shift in the church, and it's a huge challenge for these people, Jews and Gentiles, who for a long time had a lot of issues with each other, to get along. The Gentiles, they're just pagans. They eat the blood.

They do all these things. The Jews had a real hard time with this. So I think the reason these things are emphasized is not because we're still called to obey the ceremonial law, per se, or something like that. It's because he's trying to help these two cultures come together in one body now. He's saying, look, we need to be accommodating to one another. We need to be gracious to each other.

Here are things you shouldn't do because they're going to create problems. And so that's why it's stated there. The gospel has to be central, but we still need to be gracious to each other in the church. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar. Or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.